Brannik Vezdrik is a broad-shouldered human man with the weathered face of someone who has spent half his life underground. His skin is copper-brown and crosshatched with tiny pale scars from salt burns. His black hair is clipped close on the sides but hangs in a stiff, uneven ridge over his brow, as though cut with a knife during an argument. One eye is dark hazel, while the other is clouded silver from an old cave-in, yet he turns that damaged eye toward people when they speak, making them feel more closely watched than if he were staring directly at them. He moves with a miner's careful economy, testing floors with his heel before committing his weight, but when startled he becomes startlingly graceful, folding and twisting like a dancer avoiding falling furniture. He smells faintly of lamp oil, wet stone, and sugared plums, an unexpectedly sweet trace that clings to him even after hard travel.